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Feds subpoena writers who posted security memo

Federal agents Tuesday evening served subpoenas on two aviation writers who posted a leaked memo detailing new airport security procedures the Transportation Security Administration imposed after the failed Christmas Day bombing.

“He was very polite, and used ‘sir’ a lot, and he said he just wanted a name: Who sent me the security directive,” Elliott wrote on his blog.

Elliott also posted the text of the subpoena, in which the TSA orders him “to produce and permit inspection and copying of … (a)ll documents, emails, and/or facimile transmissions in your control possession or control concerning your receipt of TSA Security Directive 1544-09-06 dated December 25, 2009.”

Elliott’s response?

“I told Flaherty I’d call my attorney and get back to him.”

Reached by phone Tuesday, Elliott referred me to his lawyer, who has not returned messages.

Steven Frischling, who writes the Flying With Fish blog, wrote that Elliot called to ask if he had a similar visit just before a sedan pulled up with two TSA special agents.

“I sent two of my kids upstairs, and like Chris I was served a subpoena by the Department of Homeland Security to disclose who sent me the contents of SD-1544-09-06,” Frischling wrote. “The two Special Agents were at my house for more than two hours speaking with me as I held my youngest son in my arms most of the time.”

The TSA responded to an inquiry about the investigation with a statement saying: “Security directives are not for public disclosure. TSA’s office of inspections is currently investigating how the recent SDs were acquired and published by parties who should not have been privy to this information.”

Flightglobal’s Mary Kirby wrote Tuesday that agents returned in the morning to haul off Frischling’s computer.

“It was ‘give it to us voluntarily or we will take every computer, blackberry and iPhone out of your house,’” Frischling told Kirby, adding that the memo came via Web mail, which agents checked Monday.

“There is literally nothing on my computer they can look at,” he said. “I didn’t seek out the source. I don’t know who my source is. It is not someone I know or have a relationship with or cultivated. It comes from a free email account. For me, once I received the document, read it, and saw that Chris Elliot had it, there was no doubt in my mind that it was a real document.”

Frischling also noted that the memo “was sent to thousands of people – all airports and airlines that fly into the USA. It went to the airport in Islamabad and Hong Kong, for instance. Pakistan Airlines flies to JFK. Plus the TSA has about 50,000 people in the agency.”

Frischling and Kirby also pointed out that several carriers, including Air Canada, JetBlue and WestJet, provided explicit details on the new measures.

In his original post on Monday’s visit Frischling praised the agents’ professionalism in doing their job.

The DHS & TSA are taking this matter seriously, and that tells me that they are paying attention to security in detail. Their issue is not that the Security Directive expires tomorrow, or even that I posted SD-1544-09-06 but that someone within the TSA sent this sensitive document outside of the agency. I understand why the TSA wants to find the person leaking this information and I wish I had a long intertwined story about how I got the document, but I don’t.

I received it, I read it, I posted it. Why did I post it? Because following the failed terrorist attack on the 25th of December there was a lot of confusion and speculation surrounding changes in airline & airport security procedures.

We are a free society, knowledge is power and informing the masses allows for public conversation and collective understanding. You can agree or disagree, but you need information to know if you want to agree or disagree. My goal is to inform and help people better understand what is happening, as well as allow them to form their own opinions.

My immediate take on this is that, while I understand that federal officials must take security leaks seriously, the memo was widely distributed and detailed nothing more than security procedures everyone would soon know, given that they were immediately imposed, so I have little problem with the decision to publish it.

The only detail of the memo that travelers wouldn’t know is a directive to “focus on syringes being transported along with powders and/or liquids.” But, given that officials disclosed publicly that the underpants bomber had powdered explosives and an acid-in-syringe detonator, that’s no great revelation.

I also think federal agents might have bigger fish to fry (pun intended) than the leaking of this memo.

Christopher Fotos, Web managing editor for Aviation Week, took a stand on the Things With Wings blog against publishing the memo and insisted the leak is a serious issue “(b)ecause someone with access to controlled security information violated the terms of their employment, probably breaking the law, potentially endangering security, and could do so again.”

One basic tenet of intelligence I haven’t seen any commentary on by my colleagues is that if you know what your adversary is doing, you also have a good shot at knowing what they aren’t doing.

In this case our adversary consists of a global jihad literally hell-bent on killing as many of us as possible. I know that Frischling and Elliott realize that, and I’m sure their intent was to shine a light on what they believed to be yet another layer of pointless kabuki. But you have to be really sure of yourself to take that step. Aviation Week has published scores of stories based on classified information, but the defense reporters that I’ve known here have also withheld facts that came into their possession when they felt there was a legitimate risk of endangering national security or, even more specifically, the men and women serving in the military.

Note: This is a seattlepi.com reader blog. It is not written or edited by the P-I. The authors are solely responsible for content. E-mail us at newmedia@seattlepi.com if you consider a post inappropriate..